


One Equal Temper

by Mithrigil



Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: Consensual Non-Consent, D/s, Kain needs a responsible adult, Kink Negotiation, Multi, Roleplay, Threesome - F/M/M, magic kink, or two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 13:48:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3122471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrigil/pseuds/Mithrigil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He says it, now, and at worst it will drive them away forever and that’s only justice, that’s only fair. “I want you to tie me down and not give me a choice.” <i>Like I almost did, with you.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	One Equal Temper

He chooses to ask Rosa first. Not because it’s easier--the opposite, if anything--but because the answer matters more, coming from her. Cecil might simply take his request as perversion. Rosa won’t.

Then again, Kain’s been wrong about Rosa before. Kain’s been wrong about a lot of things. What’s another?

Either way, he sits down with Rosa for tea after an afternoon of troop allocations and fleet redesign that needs either her stamp, or Cecil’s, and tea has gotten a world less awkward since Kain’s trip up Mount Ordeals but it’s never going to be completely free of tension, is it. A servant brings in kettles and cups and trays, and the same table they were just using for an unfurled map and chart becomes an almost intimate setting for two. Cecil should be here. No. No, if he were here, Kain wouldn’t be able to ask.

“He’ll be back from Cid’s soon,” she says, as incisive about Kain’s thoughts as ever. And then she leans in conspiratorially over her teacup, a twinkle in her eyes. “We were hoping you’d accompany us on our next trip out.”

Gods, how does she make it sound so simple? They’ve called him to their bed more than once, and every time it’s far too generous, more care and love than he deserves after all he’s done--to her, to both of them, mostly to her, well perhaps not, to both of them in different ways. Ordeals was supposed to clear his heart and his conscience, and maybe it has, but hasn’t done anything about fear or discomfort or the fact that he’s been horrible. The again, so has Cecil. But not the same way. And not to her. To him, and he deserved it.

“Of course,” he says, and probably takes too long. “But I wanted to...discuss that with you beforehand. If you don’t mind.”

She nods, leans back just enough to shadow some of the glimmer in her eyes. “I don’t mind at all,” she says. He could be wrong, but she sounds wary. Testing. He shouldn’t ask.

But she sits there as tea cools and watches him, for a minute at least, until he finally does.

“I don’t want you to ask me,” he says at last.

Rosa blinks, slow, definitely taken aback but of course she is, she has every right to judge what Kain says. “What do you mean?”

He shakes his head, folds his hands around the teacup. “I’ve been thinking. After all I’ve done, you should hate me.” _I certainly do._ Ordeals hadn’t changed that at all. 

“Kain, you know we--”

“I know what you say. And I do trust you. But it’s still more care than I deserve. I’ve been thinking. I don’t want you to ask me.” He says it, now, and at worst it will drive them away forever and that’s only justice, that’s only fair. “I want you to tie me down and not give me a choice.” _Like I almost did, with you._

Somehow, Rosa doesn’t look horrified. Shocked, maybe, but not angry. She takes a long sip of tea, like she’s steeling her nerves, then sets the cup down, all regal again. Kain wants to kneel at her feet. He always has.

“Do you mean me,” she asks, “or me and Cecil?”

“Either,” he says. He’s dreamed of both. But never just Cecil, not like this. It’s Rosa’s choice. It has to be. “But you don’t have to--”

“I know,” she says, waves a hand to cut him off. “I’ll talk it over with Cecil. But you know we wouldn’t be doing that to hurt you, Kain.”

He shuts his eyes, lowers his head. “You could.”

“Yes, but we don’t want to. None of this has ever been about hurting you. Gods know you do that enough on your own,” she adds, and there’s a twinge of amusement there, maybe even fondness, and he grits his teeth and bears it. “Why can’t you believe we love you, Kain?”

The first answer that comes to mind is _because I’m not worthy of love_ , but like hell he’ll say that aloud. “It’s difficult,” he says instead.

She laughs, and he opens his eyes, can’t quite raise his head enough to look up at her but does through his lashes. Her smile is as genuine and gentle as it used to be, even after all these years, all this struggle. “I have to know before I ask Cecil: would you still want this if we did it because we care about you?”

He thinks about it, another long moment while the teacup burns his hands. He dreamed of this, once, before any of the world turned upside down, before dragons and paladins and fiends. Once, when he was only a teenager, the first time he heard Cecil and Rosa together through the barracks wall.

“Yes,” he admits. “Yes, I think I would.”

***

And that’s the last he hears of it until two nights later, when Cecil’s returned and Baron settles into the calm of having both of its rulers under one roof again. Kain retreats, lets Cecil and Rosa have their reunion, confident that he’s driven them off entirely and probably forever.

Then Cecil sends for him--doesn’t ask him personally, _sends_ for him, all right, this is the end--and Kain shows up in the royal bedroom for dinner, just the three of them. Kain’s already heard the military version of what went on for Cecil out there, so there are only a few pleasantries to catch up on, and once the servants are done serving and dinner is reduced to traces pushed around plates, Cecil takes a long drink of wine, wipes his lips, and says, “So, Kain. About not giving you a choice.”

Kain very nearly drops his fork. “Yes?”

Cecil and Rosa look at each other, the silent knowing communication that they’ve had since they were young. “We’ve discussed it, and we have a few conditions.”

“Conditions?” Kain asks, because the fact that they haven’t thrown him out of Baron hasn’t quite sunk in.

Rosa nods, goes on for Cecil. “We understand that you want us to keep you up there no matter what you say. Which means we expect that you’ll say no a few times and you want us to ignore that. But I know what that’s like, and I insist that you have a way out.”

“We’ll ignore it when you say no if that’s what you want,” Cecil clarifies. “But you need something you can say if you really do want us to stop.”

“But--”

“No,” Cecil says. “That’s nonnegotiable.” He’s really learned to be King, hasn’t he. “I don’t want to damage our friendship. And knowing that I violated you is one of the things that could.”

Kain scoffs. “And knowing that I violated you isn’t?”

“It’s complicated, Kain,” Rosa says. “We know it’s complicated. You’re not the only one who knows what Golbez was capable of. Remember that.”

“And it did damage our friendship,” Cecil adds. “But we’ve all worked to repair it. Let’s make sure this is a step in the right direction, not backward. One word, Kain. To yield, if you need to.”

How many sparring bouts has he refused to yield? Too many, and not all of them to Cecil. “Fine. I’ll yield. And that’s the word.”

Cecil nods, and a moment later Rosa does as well, accepting it. “The second condition is that you take tomorrow off work. I’ve already written out the edict to send to your second-in-command, you just have to sign it. You’ll take time to recover from whatever we do, and you won’t pretend that nothing’s happened.”

“That’s reasonable,” Kain says.

“And the third is that you remove your ribbon and your crystal ring,” Rosa says, in a tone that brooks no argument. “Now.”

Kain doesn’t even have to say yes to that. He pries the ring off his right middle finger and sets it on the table, right next to his wine glass, then reaches back and undoes his hair. Without the magic of the crystal and the thread, something electric leaves his body with the protection of the elements, but he barely has time to feel that before a Slow spell snaps into his face from across the table.

He looks up, lethargic and awkward, the ribbon still dangling from his fingers. It slips out, faster than he can move, and the world around Rosa and Cecil is too bright to see without pain. Even the plates and knives have haloes, and Cecil’s white hair glows as he gathers Kain up, too quick, far too quick, and manhandles him toward the bed.

Rosa’s laughter sounds like bells. She leans over Kain and painstakingly arranges him, pulls his arms into place while Cecil takes his legs. They strip him, their hands barely touching him at all through the brightness of the magic. His clothes brush against his skin like cold wind and leave nothing behind, and then an inexorable weight pins first one ankle, then the other. He tries to look but Rosa’s body is in the way, straddling him. And then Cecil appears at his right side, leans over and chains Kain’s right wrist to the bedpost with an iron manacle.

Cecil and Rosa look at each other, over Kain’s naked body, and all the heat in him rushes down to his core.

Rosa raises her arm to cast another spell, and the cool spirals of Heal trickle down through Kain’s body, taking the lethargy with it. The world shrinks and darkens, but the dizziness is hardly unwelcome. Rosa leans down, as if to test Kain’s vision, but even if he were hale he could only see her.

Cecil is standing at Kain’s left hand now, with a pen and a paper, awaiting Kain’s signature. “You said you would sign. Consent to spend tomorrow recovering, and then we’ll cuff your other wrist.” He presses the pen into Kain’s hand, strokes the back, and his fingers are so cool, so rough, that Kain wants to melt into the bed right there.

“Read it first!” Rosa laughs, and as wonderful as that sounds it feels even better, her legs tightening around his chest, and he can’t help tensing closer.

Cecil smiles as well, tilts the edict a little closer so Kain can read it without straining. Everything’s in order, but his hand shakes as he signs, and if the ink smudges it’s no worse than any other southpaw has had to deal with.

While Cecil sets the paper aside, Rosa crawls over Kain to lock the last manacle, trap his left arm against the bedpost. The beads of her bodice scratch on his chest and it’s wonderful--and then the flash of their positions reversed, how cold his armor must have felt to her, how frightened and hateful she was. Something catches in his throat, breath or protestation, but she kisses him instead, and the manacle locks into place. Kain groans, but Rosa doesn’t stop kissing him or pressing him down into the bed and even if it’s more than he deserves it isn’t enough to drive that image out of his mind.

But he can’t hold her. He can’t push her away. And she doesn’t stop.

This time, when the Slow spell hits him, it’s not Rosa’s cast--it’s Cecil’s. Kain never thought he’d feel the difference, but he can, a sharpness that starts at his spine and spreads down, until the restraints are almost useless, heavier than they were but his body is its own restraint. Rosa holds him by the hair and pries her mouth away, and it’s Cecil’s turn to claim him, his mouth too hot and hair too soft and the kiss over far too soon. Cecil says, carefully but still faster to Kain’s ears, “I know this isn’t what you wanted. Not yet. But it will be.”

“We promise,” Rosa says. Then she blinds him.

Even in battle, Kain hasn’t been both slowed and blind for years. His body seizes, all instinct, but if they do anything about it he can’t see or feel. But he hears, once the panic subsides: hears Rosa’s gasps and Cecil’s low breath, and their bodies rub against his but don’t touch, not deliberately. They kiss in the darkness, and it’s everything he remembers and everything he hates, from hearing them through walls, from being cut out of their life. But it’s worse, so much worse, when their skin slides against his as if by accident, when they enjoy each other just out of hearing range, when he can’t see but there’s no ambiguity, he _knows_ they love each other and jealousy is like a wound in his chest.

But however long that takes, soon enough Rosa is grinding against his thigh, slick and hot, and even if Kain might as well not be there she whimpers like she needs him. Someone holds Kain’s hips down, maybe her, maybe Cecil. Rosa comes, without Kain, without either of them maybe, and Kain is lost in the dark, torn up with wanting.

Then a mouth, heavy and hot, closes around him, and he comes, too fast, too soon.

They don’t laugh at him, don’t stop. Someone Heals him, but even when he comes back to the world he’s chained down, can’t twist out of the way when Cecil aligns their bodies and kisses him, again, thick with Kain’s taste. He’s naked--they both are, all of them are--but Cecil’s skin is as rough as Kain’s, remade from a thousand scars. So many of them from Kain’s spear, sealed with Rosa’s magic. They shouldn’t want him. They shouldn’t want him, and they do.

“You’re going to feel this, Kain,” Rosa says beside him, the energy of another spell gathered around her hand. Kain looks up from kissing Cecil just in time for the spell to connect.

This time, the world doesn’t slow: only Kain stills. He can still breathe, still hear, still speak--useless platitudes like _what_ and _why_ and _no_. He’s outside himself, the same as when Golbez whispered in his heart. Everything in his body screams and his heart pounds but nothing moves, nothing can.

Cecil and Rosa trade places, so she’s atop him again, and Cecil behind her. Kain watches, helpless, as she takes him in. But the heat of her is so good, so blissfully slick and easy, and if Kain could arch up to meet her he would, a thousand times. Powerless, yes, but not neglected, not alone--

“Rosa,” Cecil breathes, at the edge of the bed, “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she says, “yes, please,” rocks her hips forward and presses down, her chest solid against Kain’s. Before he has any idea what to brace for, Rosa tightens around him, and pants into his throat as Cecil takes her too, right alongside Kain.

The entire world shrinks. There is only the motion of their bodies around and against him. Nothing else. Nothing but them, and their use of him. And he thinks he says “No,” somewhere else, somewhere distant, “no, not this,” but only because it’s everything he wants and has no right to have.

But Rosa, Rosa breathes, “Yes,” over and over into the hollow of Kain’s throat as Cecil sets the pace. He thrusts, never withdrawing completely, slow and unrelenting, and Kain would answer it if he could, but no. He can’t. A lifetime later, Rosa comes, shuddering around him, and still Cecil doesn’t stop, not until Kain is stumbling along with them in the strangest climax of his life, all in body and hardly in mind at all. It’s not the white noise of Barbariccia or the imprisoned absence of Golbez--he’s here, and they use him, want him, love him, and he can only lie back and let them.

Once Kain’s come again, Rosa withdraws with one last kiss, deep and final. She slides her hands down his body, all the way to his right ankle, and unclasps the manacle. It’s over, then, and Kain says so, a hoarse whisper that comes out more question than statement, “No more?”

“Hardly,” Cecil says. “We’re not done with you. “ Then he lifts Kain’s pliant, spell-stilled leg over his shoulder, and reaches down between Kain’s legs to prepare him.

No. No, they’re not done. But it’s about then that Kain realizes the enormity of what they plan to do.

***

They use him for hours. He thought it would be done with Cecil, but no: even after Cecil’s withdrawn, Rosa casts a sleep spell that Kain barely feels, and the next thing he knows is waking, no longer chained but bound with his arms at his side and only his mouth free. It’s the dead of night, and Rosa needs no magic to draw him down to her, use his tongue and his industry and not let him come. Once she’s done, Cecil lifts Kain up on his knees and has him do the same. He doesn’t let Kain come either, and Rosa magicks him to sleep again, unfulfilled but dead to the world.

With the first light of dawn, he’s unbound, only chained to the bed by one long chain around his left ankle. He wakes, blearily, facefirst in one of the royal pillows. Rosa’s already gone, but Cecil’s in the corner, buttering toast at the same table they had dinner at last night.

Cecil looks up, smiles. “Good. Are you all right?”

No. The answer is definitely no. This makes no sense. But also yes, something is right about this, so Kain will just start with the part that isn’t. He sits up against the headboard, negotiates the chain. “We’re done.”

“No,” Cecil says, just the answer to a question. “No, we aren’t. I thought we made that clear a few hours ago.” He sets the toast on a plate, carries it over to the bed with water. “Eat.”

“Not while I’m chained to the bed like a dog.”

Cecil raises his eyebrow, looks Kain over as he sits beside him. He asks, clearly meaning more than the first sound of the words, “Is that a no?”

Kain looks down at the plate of toast, and says nothing about yielding.

“Good,” Cecil says. He strokes Kain’s back, just once, as if to check for injuries or point out a snarl in his hair. “First, drink some water. I’ll wait. Then take some time for yourself. One of us will be back shortly. You should eat, but I won’t force you.”

Kain drinks the entire glass, then the next almost as soon as Cecil pours it. Cecil laughs, then runs a comb through Kain’s hair a few times in silence, and leaves him there.

In the end, Kain does eat a few bites of toast, then cleans and relieves himself at the chamber pot. The chain around his ankle is long enough for him to get at the rest of what’s on the breakfast table, so he has some cheese and fruit as well, and stares out the window. He has no idea where the key to this manacle is, but he’s sure that he could escape if he needed to even so--but he also has no idea where they put his clothes and armor.

Just as he’s mulling that over, Cecil comes back in again. “Good, you ate. Are you ready?”

“For what?”

“More.”

Kain’s heart plummets down to his stomach, like a jump onto uncertain ground.

Cecil reaches out an arm to cast, and Kain knows what spell is coming before it hits. Darkness overwhelms him, and he’s still fumbling blind when Cecil comes to take him back to bed. He still knows how Cecil fights, always has, always will, but blind and off-guard Kain finds himself pinned soon enough. Cecil isn’t stronger, but he takes the advantage and holds it, holds Kain down and jerks him off, Cecil’s hand and the stained silk sheets his only point of anchorage in this world.

After that, after _everything_ , life is a haze and a blur. The next thing Kain knows, Cecil’s shortened the chain and is kissing him, tenderly, and then the enforced darkness is replaced by the oblivion of sleep. Then it’s Rosa, smiling and stretched out alongside him as he wakes, trailing a hand down his chest. She peppers kisses on his shoulder and chest, then down to his legs, slow, lingering. Her hair is done up for court but she’s otherwise nude, here with him instead of ruling the world downstairs, and Kain protests, knows he deserves absolutely none of this.

“Nonsense,” she says, then holds him down and fucks him. There’s no other word for it. She rides him until she’s come twice and when he’s still hard and striving off the bed, not sure if he’s begging to come or for this to be over, she Hastes him. Hastened and chained, there’s nothing he can do but give in, arch into the heat of her until his body gives in.

When he stills and she Heals him, his heart is still racing. She curls up against him to listen to it, to look him in the eyes. “Kain,” she whispers, hoarse from panting, “Kain, are you with me?”

He can’t wipe the tears from the corners of his eyes, so he turns his face into the pillow. “Why? Why this?”

She laughs into his shoulder, heedless of the sweat. “Because we love you, and you asked.” She pulls away just enough to not touch him, and he flinches, toward or away, he’s not sure. “Do you want to be done?”

“Gods, yes,” he says, “how do you still--”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “But no. Maybe you need a break. I’m going to put you to sleep again. We’ll ask again later.”

She raises her hand to cast, but doesn’t, not yet--like she’s waiting for something, like she wants him to see.

“Rosa,” he chokes out, “I’m sorry.”

She smiles. “I know. But do you yield?”

He doesn’t. And she waits, strokes his hair back from his forehead, and kisses him between the eyes. _Then_ she puts him to sleep.

After that, there’s nothing else. Nothing but waking to one of them beside him, chained or stilled or unbound but unwilling to leave. Nothing but their tender, merciless use of him; nothing but their hands and their kisses and their sex, and their voices, keeping him aware enough to answer, _do you yield_. But no. He can’t. He doesn’t. He can’t take this love and this kindness but can’t give in to it either, no matter how many ways they take him. They bind him or magick him each in turn, Cecil to fuck him while he’s spread and still, Rosa to trace him through slowness and blindness, a blur of tenderness that’s only twisted in its perpetuity. And they always ask, but for all that Kain protests even asking has become part of this prison of kindness. They keep their promise. They ignore it when he says no. Well, no, Kain thinks, dim in sex and dreams, that’s not quite true: they pause when he says no and give him a chance to finalize it, and he never does.

He can’t, because he wants this, so much that whether he deserves it or not doesn’t matter anymore.

Night falls, or fell long ago, and they’re both there this time when he wakes, Cecil’s head pillowed on Kain’s belly, Rosa’s leg twined over his hip. They kiss him, stroke him in tandem through paths of hours-old sweat, line their bodies up with his. He’s not bound this time, just trapped between them, and his hands shake when he tries to touch them back, tries to push Rosa away or settle his hand in Cecil’s hair or both, or neither.

Cecil comes up on his knees, hovers over Kain. How are his eyes so steady when everything else is a blur? “Kain, are you with us?”

_Yes,_ he thinks, louder than he can speak, louder than the wind in his ears and the red in his throat. He nods, like that’s all he can bring his body to do. And it might be. This is too much. They are too much.

Cecil grabs him by the chin, tilts his face up. Oh. Kain hadn’t realized he’d looked away. “Kain,” he says again, louder this time. “Answer me.”

_Your king commands it,_ Kain thinks, and laughs, helpless and dizzy. But this time he can’t nod, can’t turn away, so he just says “No.”

“All right,” Cecil sighs. He tilts down, smile fading lips and breath just a hair away--again, they’re going to do this again, wear him out and wring him dry and love him no matter what he says--

“I yield,” Kain whispers, and then over and over like blood from a wound, “I yield, I yield...”

Something sighs through the room, or out of it, and Cecil sinks down atop him but doesn’t kiss him, not now. He turns Kain onto his side and Rosa settles against his back, and for a long moment they just lie there, breathing. Kain curls his hands into fists, one in the sheets, one balled against Cecil’s chest, and Rosa wraps her arms around him to cover his fists. He’s not sure how long they stay like that, but it’s good, it’s right.

Eventually, when he starts to fidget, Cecil smiles and pulls Kain close, just like a quick farewell in the field, and gets off the bed. He goes to the door, orders up some food, and Rosa strokes Kain’s hair until he can sit up for water. The world comes back in haloes and breaths and tiny discomforts, but by the time Rosa helps Kain to the table and sets a plate of bread and rich stew in front of him everything is mostly back in place.

Cecil sits down across from him, and Rosa between them, at Kain’s right and Cecil’s left, where no one’s elbows will crash as they eat.

“I’m sorry,” Cecil says.

Kain swallows a mouthful of stew, warm and perfect on his reddened throat. “For what?”

Cecil sets his fork down. “I know that wasn’t what you meant.”

“No,” Kain admits. “But it was what I needed. I’m sorry I didn’t know.”

Rosa laughs, leans her head on his shoulder. “That’s just to be expected,” she says, biting but humorous and true. “But don’t worry. We know.”

_They do,_ Kain thinks, _don’t they. Only they get to decide whether they love me or not._ But he can’t say that aloud, not when he needs to get his strength back up.

So next time, he can last longer, now that he’s yielded once.


End file.
